With teenage twins and a nine-year-old boy to care for, Joadey Dyer was a little surprised to find out she was pregnant again.
And her surprise turned to shock when doctors revealed that she was expecting triplets, which would double her offspring.
Her husband Gary is now badly outnumbered in the Dyer household because all six of her children are girls.
Mom in a million Joadey Dyer with her newborn triplets, her twin daughters and her other daughter.
Her wife, who gave birth in March, said she suspected she was having more than one baby shortly after learning she was pregnant.
“I knew something was wrong because she was growing so fast and she ate like a horse,” the 39-year-old said.
Now I’m up most of the night. After one wakes up to eat, I go back to bed and half an hour later another one wakes up.’
She and her roofer husband already had 15-year-old non-identical twins, Kirsty and Brook, and nine-year-old Maddison.
Two of the girls’ triplet siblings, Erin and Evie, are identical because they came from the same egg.
However, the third, Riley, came from a separate egg released during the same cycle, a type of conception known as polyzygous.
Weighing between 2 pounds 4 ounces and 2 pounds 10 ounces, they were delivered by C-section four weeks early, aided by a team of 26 doctors. They spent six weeks regaining strength in the maternity unit at Southend Hospital, near her home in Benfleet, Essex.
Ms Dyer, whose twins were conceived as triplets before one miscarried, said: “When you’re pregnant with three babies all you keep thinking is what’s going to go wrong because the chances of problems go up.”
“Everyone coming out screaming and not having any problems is great.”
The triplets now feed every four hours and wear 20 diapers a day.
Mrs Dyer said that she had twins on her mother’s side dating back to 1837.
“They seem to appear about every 37 years, but we’ve never found another set of triplets,” she said.
Her husband was coping well with being around girls, she added. “We keep reminding him that there is only one of him and seven of us,” she added.
